Dagorekh
The Lord of Silence, Arbiter Dagorekh is an exile from the Isandrekh Dynasty and its former Nemesor. He is also the son of the Dynasty's Phaeron Obrean and well reknown as having been a rising star in military circles. At present he is travelling between dynasties, attempting to gather forces for a raid on the Eye of Terror. Biography Birth and Upbringing Dagorekh was born and raised in the way all Necrontyr were: screaming in pain. Despite being the grandson of the reigning Phaeron of the Isandrekh Dynasty, Zabarakh, there was very little that could be done to make his childhood any easier. After a time Dagorekh, like all those of his race, learned to ignore the constant throbing in his limbs as the cancers gradually rotted him away. Ignore is probably too strong a word, rather, he learned to function in spite of them. As a child Dagorekh stuided under one of the Phaeron's nephews and the young prince's cousin Ashren. In this time he was instilled with the Dynasty's Three Values and was taught the traditional Necrontyr art of fighting with staff weapons, as well as diplomatic and military training. Dagorekh took most to his military training, showing promise in the art of war. For the most part Dagorekh's exposure to the ongoing war with the Old Ones was limited. However, in the Prince's eighth year his father's homeworld was raided by Eldar and a short but brutal battle took place outside of the palace. At first all Dagoekh heard of the fighting was echoes of explosions from outside. Frustrated by not knowing what was going on, the young Necrontyr slipped away from his handlers and tried to reach one of the balconies so he could see for himself. Before he had gone far beyond the confines of the inner palace however, he encountered a band of three wounded soldiers retreating from the battle. The two were supporting their third comrade, who dragged a pair of smashed and bleeding legs across the tiled floor. His flesh was burned and coloured black with ash, while his companions bore numerous lacerations and burns of their own. The boy stood frozen until his minders found him and took him back into the inner palace. The raid was beaten off with only a few dozen casualties and minor damage to structures, but the effect on the prince would last for the rest of his life. And beyond. The Trials On the day of his fourteenth birthday and his coming of age Dagorekh underwent the Isandrekh tradition of the "The Trials". In usual fashion the tests assigned him were set in areas that he had not been shown to excell and would match one of the three virtues each. These were melee combat with three humanoid canopteks to test his strength and curing a slow acting poison with which he had been injected to test his intelligence. All this was done in total isolation and silence in order to test his courage. It was expected that Dagorekh would start to talk to himself, or would hum or grunt in order to break the unnatural quiet, but instead he seemd to own it, moving and acting so as not to break the spell of quiet that had been layed upon his surroundings. Thus, when the Trials were complete Dagorekh was granted the official title of Triarius and the secondary title of The Lord of Silence, also translated to "He who conquers the quiet". Early Political and Military Career Father's Ascendance to Overlord As the First War in Heaven drew to a close Dagorekh's Grandfather-the Phaeron Zabarakh-died. This blow struck the Dynasty to its core and threatened to collapse it entirely. Zabarakh had stabalised Isandrekh after the old Phaeronia Goreaga commited suicide. He had consolidated the Dynasty's power base as a force to be reckoned with amoung the lesser Necrontyr states, and had begun the process of bringing the Isandrekh Dynasty to the status of a Great Power of the Necrontyr. With his death many feared that the Isandrekh Dynasty would be swept away by its rivals and the tides of war. This did not prove to be so. Obrean proved to be an effective leader. He was shrude and aggressive, forcing lesser Dynasties to capitulate to Isandrekh as vassals, or in many cases be annexed outright. He also reshaped the Dynasty's policy in regards to participating in the war. No longer would they simply provide weapons and supplies to the front lines, but the Isandrekh Dynasty would raise Legions of its own, and send them to fight on the front lines in the name of the Necrontyr Empire. It was during this period of many small internal wars that Dagorekh began to carve out a position of power for himself. The young necrontyr demonstrated great tactical apptitude in the Dynasty's "wars of internal expansion", gaining such confidence from his troops that many began to take orders from the Triarius rather than from his superior Lord. Eventually said commander was killed in action in a battle against the Eldar on the front lines, and Dagorekh assumed temprorary control. It was likely in no small part due to the fact that he was the Phaeron's son, that once the situation had quietened Dagorekh received not only the fallen Lord's military command, but also his political position. Few objected to this choice however, as Dagorekh had shown a powerful intellect up until this point, and it was only natural for the Phaeron to want his position consollidated by appointing to positions of power those he could trust. Role in the First War in Heaven Dagorekh's role in the clash between the Necrontyr and the Old Ones was limited. Most of his combat experience was received fighting other necrontyr in the Wars of Internal Expansion, and he only fought on the regular front lines for a short period of time. During this time he found himself (like all other necrontyr commanders) constantly on the defensive, and regularly frustrated by attacks made against his supply lines. For the short part of the conflict in which he served, he acted as a Phalanx commander, leading a force of just under a hundred warriors in defence of the Dynasty's main manufacturing worlds; The Oritan Cluster. He-along with the rest of the necrontyr forces-were eventually driven into a full scale retreat back to the tight cluster of core necrontyr planets around the Goul Stars. Bio-transference Dagorekh was among those nobles in the Isandrekh Dynasty who stood against Bio-transference. The young Necron Lord remained skeptical of the C'tan's offers, thinking them (rightly) to be too good to be true. Why should this mysterious race want to give them so much in return for a simple alliance, if they themselves were as powerful as they seemed? He protested and fought against the process up until the very last day, when Obrean capitulated, and agreed to the plan. Though reluctant, Dagorekh did not take up arms over the issue, or attempt to refuse the bio-furances. As his flesh was scorched away and replaced with necrodermis, his body trembled with extensive pain. But he refused to scream, refused to cry out. Instead, he made a thousand silent vows to inflict the same pain on those he held to blame: the Old Ones. But as his new metal form staggered clumsily into the open air, he realised that he had been right from the very beginning: the deal the C'tan had promised was far too good to be true. Unlike most of his race he had never been a very religious individual. He had disdained his people's obssesion with the Afterlife, believing that it was just an elaborate system of comforters that they had contrived over the millenia in order to help them cope with the reality of their short and painful lives. Now he knew better. He knew that souls were real, but only because he'd lost his. The Second War in Heaven Becoming Nemesor While the Silent King did have full command over the vast Necron army, he still divided it along the lines of the old Dynasties, and allowed their nobility to maintain control of internal command affairs. The C'tan cared little for such matters, worrying only that the Necrons won the battles they wanted them to, and continued to reap Red Harvests. So it was that Dagorekh was able to rise up the ranks of the Isandrekh military. While most aspects of the Prince's personality had become dormant after his death, one of the few that persisted was his ambition. In life Dagorekh had fervently wanted to reshape the Dynasty into a major power that he would lead. He believed (and not without reason) that he would be able to lead Isandrekh's ever growing armies to topple all opposition, and eventually either he or perhaps his own son would be able to seize ultimate power over the species and lead them to overthrow the Old Ones and assume galactic supermacy. While he had accepted that such a goal was far fetched at best, he had stuck by it. It was this fervent desire for power so as to reshape the galaxy (he believed for the better) that clung to him, even after death. Dagorekh acheived his position of Necron Overlord early in the second war with the Old Ones. When the Isandrekh Dynasty was chosen to launch the attack on the fortress world of Manderat, Obrean appointed Dagorekh to a position commanding a full third of the forces deployed, meaning that Dagorekh was leading an entire Legion and thus a de facto Overlord. If it had been possible for the early Necrons to be astonished, Dagorekh's performance in the Manderat Campaign would probably have done just that. The new Overlord chose to forego conventional Necron tactics of a wide advance with prescision strikes towards strong points, and instead chose to bypass the Old One's defensive positions and attack their civillian centres. Because the Old Ones felt responsible for the preservation of innocent life they attempted to deploy forces to intervene and so fell right into Dagorekh's trap. The Overlord deployed an entire phalanx of warriors between the Old Ones and their fortifications, in an air deployment operation on such a massive scale that it would likely have been impossible for any necrontyr to execute, and for only the more talented of necrons. The Old One strike forces were surronded and destroyed, leaving the fortifications sparsely defended. After a single direct assault the fortress complex was overthrown, concluding possibly the greatest battle of Dagorekh's military career, and certainly the most famous. During the battle the Isandrekh Nemesor underwent a mysterious series of malfunctions that resulted in the collapse of his higher logic centres, reducing him to the status of a glorified immortal. After the Great Sleep many Isandrekh nobles hypothesised that Dagorekh might have in some way been responsible for this sudden faliure in reasoning in the old Nemesor, but at the time most necrons were incapable of such suspiscions. Dagorekh was appointed the new Nemesor in recognition of his grand victory. Betraying the C'tan As the war against the Old Ones began to grind into a stalemate after the advent of both the Orks and the Enslaver Plague, the Silent King began to contemplate long term goals for his race. He concluded that if his people were to have any future whatsoever, then they had to overthrow their Star god masters. But this was not something that could just happen over night, it would take careful planning, and weaponry the likes of which the Necrons had never before employed. To this end the Silent King began to meet with various Phaerons of Dynasties that specialised in the construction of super weapons in secret. One such Phaeron was Obrean. The Isandrekh Dynasty's role in the design of the so called Doomsday Cannons that channeled the energy from collapsing stars obliterated by the Celestial Orrery, was secondary for the most part (though the cryptek Sarumanekh played a major role in the design of certain power condensation systems). Instead, Isandrekh-along with several other former merchant Dynasties-focused on production. When the rebellion began Obrean put the Dynasty's full weight behind it, pouring resources into the war with a fanaticism born of his hatred for the C'tan. By this time Dagorekh had begun to regain some levels of clear thinking, and though bound to follow the Silent King's orders, he began to question some of the commands of his father. While he was alive Dagorekh had born a level of quiet resentment for his father. Obrean had never spent any real time with Dagorekh when he was a child, preferring instead to leave him to the hands of his caretakers, to no small extent because the boy's birth had caused the death of his mother Saren. This resentment continued on into the Necron Dagorekh in a slightly different way. He became mistrustful of his father's ability to lead the Dynasty and effectivly carry out the Silent King's orders. Still, he remained loyal and lead Isandrekh forces into a battle against the C'tan known as "he who harvets the stars" or more simply: the Star Reaper. With the use of a Doomsday Cannon mounted on board his flagship Souless Doom (renamed from the Blue Twilight after Dagorekh's death) Dagorekh shattered the Star Reaper into various shards and as was standard procedure trapped them within tesseract labyrinths. However, instead of handing all of these labyrinths over to be placed within his Dynasty's vaults, he kept one hidden on board his ship, altering the records to hide its existence from his father. What exactly propmted Dagorekh's still reawakening mind to do this is unclear, but it would prove to be a valuable asset to him in the future. The Fringe Uprising The reasons for the Fringe Uprising have been debated numerous times by Isandrekh Cryptekhs and Officials since the Awakening, but none have come to a solid conclusion as to why-or even how-it took place. The issue with such an event lies with the fact that at this time all necrons were bound to carry out the wishes of the Silent King, and so a rebellion should not have been possible. It has been hypothesised that somehow the various rebel nobles managed to find their way around the protocol through various loopholes. While this is generally accepted as the most likely explanation, it fails to answer questions such as why the nobles felt the very need to rebel in the first place. This and the response that the loyalist elements made to the uprising cast into question the notion that during the Second War in Heaven the Necrons were without free will. Regardless of such things, the fact remains that while the Phaeron devoted disproportionate amounts of resources to the front against the C'tan, internal stability within the Dynasty itself became compromised. It was to the point that even planet's primary computing systems were redirected away from their normal duties and focused on devising ways to combat the C'tan. Seemingly angered by the abuse of their resources, a collection of nobles around the fringes of the Dynasty cut off all shipments of resources and troops to the Crown World, and waited for the Phaeron's response. And they waited, and waited, and waited. No response seemed forth coming, and the rebels took it into their mechanical heads that there was never going to be one. Overlord Szeves, the leader of the uprising, declared that Obrean had gone mad, and was incapable of leading the Dynasty any longer. The fringe worlds broke away, declaring their independence from Isandrekh proper. Obrean was furious, but did nothing. The acusations of madness were not without warrent, for he was intent upon the war with the C'tan to a point that bordered on luncay, and perhaps even crossed over. It was at this point that the still relativly fresh Nemessor decided that it was time to go over his father's head. Dagorekh assembled a council of the loyalist nobles without his father's knowledge. On this council sat his military mentor Cortekh, the twin Lords Xerex and Cabrean, Dagorekh's childhood friend Forenekh, his rival Exeren and various other nobles. They pooled as much of their resources as they felt they could risk drawing away from the current wider front, and hurled them in a spearhead towards Szeves' home world of Mebeck. Prior to arrival at Mebeck Dagorekh split the forces under his command, assigning Forenekh and Bavarillius command of two smaller fleets with which to tie down any reinforcements that might be sent to relieve Mebeck. The descision to give a command position to Forenekh rather than Exeren was taken well by said Overlord and his supporters, as they took it (rightly) as an insult to Exeren ability to command, even though he was the senior noble. The battle itself was brief but decisive, with Szeves' entire fleet being destroyed, against Dagorekh's loss of only a single Heavy Cruiser. Szeves would die during the battle for the planet itself, droping destroyed next to her escape craft, her head having been annihilated by a shot from a Synaptic Disintegrator. With the leadership destroyed the rest of the rebels quickly fell into line. Though Dagorekh had stabalised the Dynasty, his doubts as to his father's worthiness to lead only been solidified. But as of yet he did nothing, knowing that a full scale coup would doubtless not benefit the greater Necron war effort, thus violating the wishes of the Silent King, whom he was still bound to obey. The Great Sleep Awakening The Imperium First Campaign of Reclamation Initial Muster First Blood at Mebeck The Oritan Cluster An Old Friend The Seige of Irriat Rivalry with Exeren Reluctant Intervention Second Campaign of Reclamation Castallan Reawakens Opening Moves Astartes Morlorn and Amra Tyranus Political Complications Seige of Tyranus III Undeclared Ceasefire On Trial Expedition to the Void The Typhonian Shards Personality As a Necrontyr Upon Awakening Currently Forces Royal Court The 3rd Legion Xerex and Cabrean's Phalanx Canoptekh Contingent Relationships Obrean Forenekh Cortekh Exeren Sarumanekh Imotekh the Stormlord Other Necrons Tutkar Bavarillius Xerex and Cabrean Tyti Category:Necron Characters